Many Christians question or deny the need for church membership. This often extends even to a denial of the legitimacy of the local church as a unique entity. However, when we examine scripture carefully and look at what all of scripture teaches we see a very different picture. The local church is legitimate, organized body - a flock with it's own elders and members. Further, church membership is not based on mere attendance but is an orderly relationship where the believer is brought into the church in a formal and serious commitment to the church's other members and elders.

The following message is a presentation of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where we're proclaiming the sufficiency of Scripture for church and family life. More information about the NCFIC is available at www.ncfic.org. Is available at www.ncfic.org. Our Father, we begin the way we always begin, asking you for help. How slow we are to understand the things that are in your word, are part of being in your kingdom.

God, we desire to be fed by you during these moments. We desire to look at your word, understand it rightly, and consider these things in a way that would be helpful, that would be a blessing. Help us, Lord, as we come before you to learn in Jesus' name, Amen. So today's teaching is actually about is about church membership and I have a very very simple structure to, Yeah, if you can just make it so it blows in one direction, that would be great. No, away from me, unfortunately.

I would love it. Eddie once had pointed right at him. And he turned 42 yesterday, so we should accommodate this man. So I have a very simple structure today, and it's really around answering two questions. One is, is church membership biblical?

And the second question is, is it significant? There are those who think it's biblical but wonder if it really has an impact on church life. And so I'm going to argue as best as I know how today that it is both biblical and that it's incredibly significant to the life that we're living together in in the local church. When we talk about church membership I think the right place maybe the only place to start is is to talk about is to talk about the nature of the church. And there are two respects in which we ought to think about the church.

The first respect is the universal church and the big C church, capital C church. And the second respect is the local church, which is the little C church. And to determine whether both of these are real and true and significant and separate entities or not, and what says the scriptures. And so the universal church, the big C church, is the thought that all those who have trusted in Christ, even those before Christ, like Abraham, who didn't exactly know that they were trusting in God, but they believed in God and it was counted to them as righteousness. All of those who have placed their trust in God for salvation will make up a body that will be before the Lord in heaven at the end of time and they will worship him and we will be with him together.

There will be no divisions. It will be one entity. It will be the universal church. And can't you wait for that day? Ephesians 4 says this.

There is one body. And so the big C Church, the universal church, isn't hard to talk about because the people of God are the body of Christ. And Ephesians 4 says what we all know, which is that there is one body. And in that sense, we're an undivided people. Hebrews 12 one says, "'Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and this is right after the great faith chapter which talks about these faithful saints through the centuries who have believed in God, who have put their faith in God, and sometimes they were sawed into.

This is the cloud of witnesses that the author of Hebrews is talking about in Hebrews 12.1. And it's that thought that we've been describing, that there is one body, and that includes Abraham and Moses and Rahab and all the people that are listed in the cloud of witnesses in Hebrew 11. That's what's being talked about in Hebrews 12.1. And so the universal church is a beautiful doctrine and it's a doctrine that's not disputed. So we're not going to spend really any more time than that.

Other than it's clearly biblical, there is one body. There's a great cloud of witnesses. And we're a part of that, those who have trusted in Christ. That, by the way, does clearly have a membership role. It's called the Book of Life.

And it's talked about actually quite frequently. It's mentioned in Hebrews, and it's mentioned, I think, six times in the Book of Revelation. So there is a membership role for the Big Sea Church, the universal church. The second is the local church, and you're sitting in one of those. And while in some ways the Big Sea Church, the universal church, is somewhat theoretical.

In other words, we don't sit down and have lunch with most of the Big Sea Church. They're part of a great cloud of witnesses that we'll never meet until we get to heaven. And so it's a wonderful thought, but there's not a lot of flesh and bones on it because we don't shake the hands of most of the people in the Big Sea Church. So the local church is where we actually look other people who have faith in the eye and are involved in their lives and have them involved in our lives. Now this has led some people to say the local church is just a mirage.

It's not really true. The local church is it isn't a church per se but it's it's just a local expression and I've actually heard that term, read that term, and used that term. It's just a local expression of the universal church. So I want to examine from the scriptures whether the local church is really a separate entity or whether it's a mirage, whether the Bible acknowledges it as something separate or just an expression of the big C Church. And I think a helpful place to start in that discussion is in 1 Corinthians 1.

In 1 Corinthians 1, in verse 2, Paul says this, to the church of God which is at Corinth. To the church of God which is at Corinth. So Paul, it's clear that Paul's not writing to the big C church, although a lot of the church gets to see this after the fact. But the audience that he's addressing this letter to isn't all believers from all time. It's the people at Corinth, and he's treating them like an entity to the church of God which is at Corinth.

Not to the universal church, but to this church, the one that is in Corinth. Interestingly enough, in verse 11, he says that it's been declared to him that there are contentions among him. That's why he's writing, because he's disturbed about the contentions that he's hearing out of this church. And then in verse 13, he says, is Christ divided? So Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 1.13 exactly what was in Ephesians 4.4.

There is one body. Is Christ divided? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is obvious, and the answer is no. Christ isn't divided.

And yet, he's already referred to these people as a separate entity. And to this, we would say, this is just like God. This is just like the nature and character of God. And it shouldn't surprise us to see that the church actually mirrors the nature and the character of God in this way. Is there one God?

Yes. Are there three persons in the Godhead? Yes. Both are true at the same time. And it's a lot that way with the universal church.

There is one body, and yet there are entities that God calls a specific thing, a specific church. And he does that in other places as well. In Acts 20, a very famous passage about Paul calling for the elders in Ephesus to come meet with him. And it says this in Acts 20, verse 17. From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church.

Now, Paul is not calling for the elders of the universal church. They are not our elders. They are not the elders of the known world at the time. But he is calling for the elders of a real entity, not a mirage at all, but a real entity. And this is also affirmed very, very clearly in Revelations 1 through 3, where we get the letters to the churches.

And in Revelations 1, it talks about there are seven lampstands. And Jesus Christ is walking among the lampstands. And then it says that the lampstands are the seven churches, not one church with seven expressions, but actually seven churches. So the language of the New Testament would argue strongly against the thought that the local church is a mirage. The local church isn't a mirage at all.

It's actually a real entity. And it is an expression of the universal church in one way, but it is a specific entity in another way. What exactly is the local church? Well, Paul and Peter agree on the answer, and they say it's a flock. They say that the local church is a flock.

So we just continue on in Acts 20, where Paul has called, he's in Miletus, he's called the elders of the Church of Ephesus to come and meet with him. And he is exhorting these brothers who are elders in a local church. And he says this in Acts 20, 28. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood." And so he's talking about a flock. And he's telling these men to shepherd all the flock.

In other words, all the people that have been added to this local entity, to this local church, are supposed to shepherd all of them. And God has placed men to feed and protect and to nurture all the things that we find shepherds doing and that God does more perfectly than any of his under shepherds, but all the things that a shepherd ought to do. Paul is exhorting them to do that among these people. And he's saying that he's actually the one who appoints and puts in place these shepherds. Peter says the exact same thing in 1 Peter 5.

Listen to 1 Peter 5 verses 1 and the first part of 2. The elders who are among you I exhort. I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers." So Peter also sees the local church as being a flock. By the way, a flock is a designated entity. It's a defined entity.

Shepherds know who the flock is and the flock knows the voice of their shepherd. This is the message of Jesus in the book of John. So Paul and Peter here are of one mind. Now I want to ask another question. So the local church is a real entity, and the local church is a flock that has shepherds and sheep.

So what is the nature of the relationships being described between the shepherds and the sheep? Well, we learn this in a number of different passages. The first one that I want to call attention to is Hebrews 13, verse 17. Hebrews 13, verse 17 says this. Obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account.

Let them do so with joy and not with grief for that would be unprofitable for you. Now, at this point can we agree that the local church is serious business? We have shepherds that have been given an accountability for souls. They're supposed to look, they're supposed to watch over souls as those who must be given an account. And then there are those who are there who are to follow.

And the words that are using are obedience and submission. Those are almost marriage words. And I'm not here to argue that local church life is exactly like a marriage. I'm just saying those are marriage words. When you start talking about obedience and submission, those are serious business now.

This is not a baby shower where we show up and eat cake and smile and go home. The local church is different than that. There's a different relationship that is being put forward by the writers of the New Testament. It's serious business. I have an accountability for souls as an elder and you have an accountability for obedience and for submission.

And this isn't an isolated teaching at all. It's what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 12 and 13. And we urge you brethren to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly for their work's sake. Be at peace among yourselves." So in this verse, Paul is recognizing that there's real authority invested in the leaders of the local church. There's real authority so that you ought to recognize those who are over you in the Lord and admonish you.

And because there's real authority, he ends with this admonition, therefore be at peace. Therefore be at peace. And so rather than having an adversarial relationship between those who are leading and those who are being led, actually a very tender relationship is put before us by the Apostle Paul, where the leaders are working really hard on behalf of those who are led. They're leading like Christ led. They're laying down their lives.

They're being poured out for the people that they're leading. And at the same time, the followers are giving esteem and honor and love to those who have been placed over them in the Lord. So there is authority and submission, but it's not one where there's conflict necessarily. Doesn't have to be, shouldn't be built into the relationship. But it's supposed to be a tender relationship where the leaders are laying down their lives, and those who are being led esteem and love.

And this is what Paul says again in 1 Timothy 5, verses 17. Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. See the same thing again here. You see hard work. You see those who are ruling well and then you see them receiving double honor for the hard labor and the work that is going into it.

There's ruling, but there's also honor at the same time. So we agree at this point that the local church is serious business, that there are real things at stake, that there are very, very serious mutual obligations that are given to us. And they're commands. I'm not at liberty about whether I want to have a care over your soul or not. I'm put in place for this purpose, and I'm commanded by God to do it.

You're not at liberty about whether you'll submit and obey the leadership of the church, because you've been given a command by God. It's a duty placed on you by God Almighty, and it's an explicit duty. So the local church is filled with mutual serious obligations. So now let me ask hard questions related to this. What initiates this?

Attendance? OK, attendance. The first Sunday? Do I have care over your soul on the first Sunday? Do you have to obey and submit to me on the first Sunday?

How about the third? That doesn't sound reasonable. The sixth Sunday sounds more reasonable. The seventh, the tenth, what's our basis for saying, we've initiated this. We're now engaged, where I have a care of your soul and you're required to esteem me and to submit to me and to obey me.

And I just want to draw the contrast about entry into the universal church, the big C Church, and the entry into the local church, the little C Church. So what we're saying then is attendance. And it's the first Sunday, I guess, or the seventh. So entrance into the universal church requires confessing that Jesus is Lord, truly, and truly believing that God raised him from the dead. And then there's something external.

There's baptism, where you're signifying in a very physical way that you are his. You belong to him. But to enter the local church, where I, as a shepherd, have an accountability for your soul, and where I have to guard doctrine, and where you, as a sheep, have a mandate from scripture to submit and to obey, that happens simply on the basis of you showing up on the first week or on the seventh week. And by the way another question, how did I get to be a shepherd? I point myself to shepherd, did I qualify myself, did I test myself?

I guess it's based on attendance right So I guess then we appoint a day, and everybody who shows up on that day, we have a show of hands for the people who show up, because it's based on attendance. And now I'm a shepherd, and I have accountability for your soul, and I'm charged with teaching and defending the doctrine of the church, and I'm given authority to rule over you based on who showed up that day. Now, you'll notice I haven't given you any verses that talk about church membership yet. So I haven't made a biblical argument for church membership yet. But at this point, I'm just arguing the absurdity of the contrary.

And I just want you to acknowledge that what the scriptures have given us is very real commands. And we have to be able to execute those commands. We have to order things that allow us to execute those commands so that we can obey the Lord. And so I just want us to acknowledge that the commands that we're to follow are really serious. And they require some sort of ordering.

As we go through these questions, you might not know what the right answer is, but you certainly know what the wrong answer is. You have a feel for it, don't you? It can't be that on the first Sunday that I have an accountability for your soul, having never talked to you, and that you have a duty to obey and submit to me on the first day. It cannot be that. So here is the dirty little secret.

The dirty little secret is that every church has church membership, even the ones that don't. It's impossible not to have church membership. They all have church membership. And when you begin down the track with these questions on someone who doesn't believe in church membership and has fooled them into thinking they've been in churches without church membership, And you begin to ask these questions. What you find out is that they begin to make up criteria on the spot, because they know that the answer that they have not articulated, but is the conclusion of their position, is not a tenable position.

It's not a tenable position that we elect elders with just whoever shows up with no criteria. And so they know that's not a tenable position so they just start to make up criteria on the spot. And so what you get when you don't believe in church membership is ad hoc, ill-conceived, informal, off-the-cuff church membership. Because the reality is, is there are real duties to be carried out. And you have to order yourself in some kind of way to carry out these duties.

When we first started our deacon team, there were four of us. It was me and Barry Daming and Rick Muse and Jorge Ruiz. And because none of us had any deacon experience at all, we sought out a church that had lots of deacon experience. And we asked if we could talk to somebody on their deacon team who had lots of experience, and if they could just share with us what they did. Now, it was a brethren church.

And we don't believe everything that would be believed in a brethren church, but we knew that they were well advanced on the topic of deacons. And there was a multitude of things we could learn from. So we engaged with them. They were willing to. And it was such a blessing.

They sent us over all the things that they use as just kind of tools of the trade for deacons, and how you keep track of financial needs in the church, how you do benevolence. And we had these tools that had been developed by people who had been doing this work for a long period of time. What a blessing to have that. So I'm looking over the benevolence form. And one of the questions on the benevolence form, because you just don't give out money randomly.

You have to find out whether there are things that need attention much more than money. In some cases, you can actually hurt situations by giving money, So you have to be careful. You can't just dole it out at will. And so they were disciplined in this. And they had a forum where they wanted to gather certain types of information to determine when they ought to give and when they shouldn't.

So on this forum for a brethren church is the question, how long have they been a member? I thought, well, either they have plagiarized this from a Baptist church or something. So I asked the guy that we had engaged with, he said, yeah, we don't really mean member, but we don't really mean member there, but we don't know another way to describe it. And we just know when it's time to give out money, you have to have some sort of a criteria. So this highlights the point.

There are things to be done in the local church, and they simply have to be organized, or you can't do them. Benevolence is one of those. Church discipline is one of those. Finding out who ought to be a shepherd is one of those. And so things that are explicit require order that are surrounding them.

And The question is, how are you going to order it? And the answer can't be, well, we're just not going to order it unless you intend not to obey the commands that God has given us. God has given us serious mutual obligations. And there has to be ways put in place, mechanisms put in place, to allow you to obey the commands that God has given us. And I just want to argue against assumed commitment and implied commitment where your presence on the first week or the second week or the ninth week implies that you are committed and submitting yourself to the leadership.

Implies that you're committing yourself to your brothers and sisters to invest in their life and to have your life invested in them. That's wrong. That's not right to have implied, assumed commitment. It's right to have explicit commitment. And the commitment isn't just between leaders and people who should submit and obey.

What about all of our relationships with one another. And I use that term one another very strategically. I'm talking about the one anothers of the New Testament. There's 26 one anothers of the New Testament. Maybe there's more, but I know for sure of 26.

And I just want to run you through half of those just to detail the type of commitment that we're expected to have in local church life. Number one, be devoted to one another, Romans 12. Number two, Bear one another's burdens, Galatians 6. Number three, be kind to one another, forgiving one another, Ephesians 4. Speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Do not lie to one another. Encourage one another and build up one another. Stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Do not speak against one another.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Keep fervent in your love for one another. Be hospitable to one another. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another. And you say, well, I don't need church membership to do any of those one anothers to another Christian brother.

What does that have to do with church membership? And what I would say is we don't have a calling to do this for a week with a family, or with these brothers and sisters, or for a month, or for a year. But the intent of God is that we would both be giving this and receiving this for a period of decades with people who are committed to invest in one another's life in these areas. And yes, we're supposed to do them, but don't you have a sense in your soul of how much you need this for people to be saying, I'm your brother. I'll do this list for you for the next two or three decades.

I'll be here and I'll do this for you for the next three decades. So yes, we have a calling to do it, but man, do we need it. Not for a week. I don't need somebody who will do this list for me for a week. I'm not interested.

That's not a help to me. Now, if you'll do it for me for a decade, that will make a meaningful impact in my life, or two decades, or three decades. And this is the calling of God for us. Not that we have transient relationships with one another, but we learn to live life together under God's wing, under God's care, but also under one another's care. And not for a year, but for a long period of time.

And it's a reasonable expectation to know exactly what we're getting into, and what my family is going to be taught, and what I can expect, and what is expected of me. And that's just the type of ordering that makes it possible for us to do this together for a period of decades. Nothing is more frustrating for a family to come into a church where everything's nebulous, nothing is defined, No ordering has been put in place for these things. And I come and I invest two years, and it's not what I thought I was. And things are expected of me, they're different than what I thought it was going to be because there was implied assumed commitment.

And now that I really know what it is I can't stay here with a clear conscience but I've just invested two years of my life and I'm mad. Has anybody seen that happen before where it was nebulous and you didn't know what the deal was and then by the time you figured it out you'd sunk two years into it and now you're mad. This is not what God desires for his church. He desires us to know what is expected of us, what we are able to expect, what is going to be taught to our children. So how does this relate to the regular principle of worship and the sufficiency of scripture?

Many times when you say you're for church membership, you get accused of hypocrisy. Because we blather on and on about the Regulator Principle of Worship and the insufficiency of scripture. And then we trot out church membership, our favorite doctrine, and it has no support, no explicit support in the New Testament for it? And how can you hold these two things, and don't you see the disconnect? And I would just say to that that we need to understand what the regulative principle of worship does mean and what it doesn't mean.

What it does mean is that everything that we do must have clear scriptural warrant, must have biblical footings for it, a foundation from the Bible that we can build upon. What it does not mean is that the Bible is a step-by-step instruction manual for anything, any use case that we might ever stumble across. That's called the Talmud. When we brought that out last week, 81 pages on O's. With everything spelled out, the Bible is never that.

The Regulator Principle of Worship never intended to communicate that. But what it does mean is that the things that we have are based on have scriptural warrant. And that can take one of two forms. The first form is easy, and it's an explicit command. I think we can all agree if we have an explicit command, we ought to obey it.

And that's part of the Regulator Principle of worship. The second is trickier, but it is also legitimate, which is a good and necessary inference from the things that are taught in scripture. It must be good, and it must be necessary. And then we say it's legitimate to draw upon that and to build on these principles and patterns that we see in scripture. And I want to argue that the commands to shepherd and the commands to submit and obey infer an ordering.

They infer a mechanism. It's a good inference, and it's a necessary inference to say we have to have some way to go about obeying these very clear commands and these very serious mutual obligations. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 18. Matthew 18 and it's talking about church discipline. And this is where having and ordering is absolutely necessary for the carrying out of a clear and explicit command.

Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.

But if he refuses to hear even the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. So here's what we have in this text, formal exclusion. Throw them out of the church. If they will not repent, you formally exclude them. Now, how can you have formal exclusion without having formal inclusion?

How can you be excommunicated unless you've been communicated? And that's in our Constitution. It calls it communicant membership. That's what we mean. You've been formally added, and church discipline is being formally subtracted.

There is no such thing as formal exclusion unless there's some way to have formal inclusion. Now in 1st Corinthians 5, there's a case, the most famous case of church discipline probably in the New Testament, where a man has his father's wife. And Paul's so disgusted, he says, you don't even hear that talked about among the heathen. And there you are in a church of God doing these things and not acting. And He commands them to put this person out of the church.

And what we find in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 is that they actually have obeyed Paul. And they actually put this person out of the church. And apparently, there's been repentance. Because in 2 Corinthians 2, they're being told to bring this person back into the church. And here's what it says in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 6 through 8.

This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man. So that on the contrary you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him." Now listen to this first sentence again. This punishment, which was inflicted by the majority. Majority is a word that only has any sort of significance if you know what the number is.

If the number's 20, then majority is half plus 1 in this context, and majority is 11. If the number's 40, it's half plus 1. It's 21, and so on and so forth. A majority can only inflict a punishment if you know what the number is. And so we don't hold church membership in the same way that we hold the Lord's Supper, as if everything about church membership is clearly set forth like it is about the Lord's Supper or baptism or other things.

We don't hold it in the same way. We simply argue that there are places in scripture like this that require an ordering. And so As the shepherds of the church forming a constitution, we've addressed this, trying to look at the biblical principles and say, with what we have, how can we order ourselves so that we ever end up in this position, we'll know what a majority is. So we don't hold church membership in the same way that we hold communion or in baptism, but we do believe it's biblical. We do believe that it's a good and necessary inference of the text that you've seen here.

So in conclusion, I want to address a really pertinent question. Do I have to accept this? I want to be here. Do I have to accept this? And I want to give my non-answer in two ways.

And I say non-answer because we're not eager to lock horns with anybody who has a firm conviction about not thinking that it's biblical. But I do want to respond and say this. Firstly, there are two lines that are absolutely essential to New Testament church life that church membership forces you to cross. Church membership absolutely forces you across these two lines. The first is, can I submit myself and my family to the doctrine and the authority of these men?

Many, many people live decades in the church and they never cross that line. They just never answer the question. And so they forget implied commitment. They haven't solved it in their own minds whether they're willing to submit to the doctrine and the authority of the group of men of the church where they're in. That's not good.

The second line it forces you to cross is, can I commit to these people? We look around the room. We say, yes, I can do the one and others to these people for 20 or 30 years, and may God make it so. And there are thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who have lived their whole lives in the churches and have never crossed that line. They will as long as it's convenient.

They will as long as they like what's being taught or what the music is like. And they're not committed to investing their lives or being invested in for a long period of time. That's not right. People should cross that line. So one of the things I love about church membership is it forces a sort of crisis where you say, I have to decide.

Can I submit myself to the doctrine and authority of these men? Can I do the one and others with these people for a long period of time if God would leave us in this area? And the last thing I would like to say is that submitting always and only when you agree isn't submitting. It's agreeing. So let's say, I don't like your arguments for church membership.

I don't think you have made an overwhelming case for biblical church membership. So I don't agree. Submitting always and only when you agree isn't submitting. It's agreeing. And Jesus submitted when he was right and he didn't agree.

He submitted to his mother when He was rebuked for staying behind in the temple when he was a 12-year-old. He knew he was there doing his father's business. Believe me, Jesus was exactly where he should have been doing exactly what he should have been doing. That's the beauty of having Jesus as an example, because you know that's true. And yet, when his mom comes to contradict that and say, come with me, he says, yes, mom.

And he goes with her. Paul did the same. When He's rebuking this man that he doesn't know is the high priest, and he's slapped and he says whatever he says. And he's rebuked for it. He immediately submits to the authorities that God has been putting in place.

I want to say with church membership, we're not asking you to submit to something that's sinful. It's just not. Not asking you to murder, steal, lie. And there's no command against it, and your leaders are firmly convinced that it's biblical. And so we would say, please agree.

We think we're on biblical footing. But if you don't agree, consider what submission means. And Find a way to cross that line towards your leaders and towards your brethren, and get across that line. As a local church, we're called to many serious things. We're called to the one another's.

We're called to very serious mutual obligations between leaders and followers, every local church is. And membership is one of those things that allows us to unify and get on with the business of the church. The business of the church is the church membership. It's a way to organize around clear commands that we've been given, and unify, and solidify, and get around the real business of the church, which is the Great Commission. Let's pray.

Father, Father, may we be faithful to you. God, whatever the case, may we be found to be relating rightly to one another, to be honoring scripture in everything that we do, and to be living the life in the local church that you've called us to where leaders act like Jesus and pour themselves out and where followers submit, obey, give esteem and honor and love to their leaders. I do pray God that you would give us a tenderness in our relationships here. In all relationships and that you would cause us to be a people who would join together around the glory of God in the world. For God, give us a decade here, give us two decades or three decades here together, working for your glory.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Www.ncfic.org Where you can keep up to date on what is new, as well as find articles, videos, audio sermons, and much more at no charge. The N.C.F.I.C. Exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture for both church and family life. You